Gas Isn’t the Only Thing Increasing in Price…

I read over the weekend that Oracle, paying scant attention to the tough economic climate, has jacked up its product prices by upwards of 20 percent. BEA customers really took it on the chin, with price increases nudging 50 percent….ouch!

While understand these increases get offset by discounting, that discounting makes it all the more difficult to compare vendors and solutions. Trying to compare prices can be challenging enough for users thanks to the complexity of Oracle’s price list and pricing structure. I’ve read in the past that price lists for Oracle’s core product lines runs over dozens, if not hundreds, of pages.

Oracle could be risking a lot by going for above-inflation rises, especially when virtualization is proving very popular right now with businesses. Price hikes such as these simply give a company’s CFO or CTO another reason to look at other vendors, and thanks to trends such as open source and SaaS, virtualization means that customers are expecting more flexibility in their software solutions and in their pricing.